Tomorrow's The Summer Solstice...What Are You Going To Do About It?

No one procrastinates on enjoying summer. It’s one of those things that, once it’s warm, boom—we’re barbecuing and laughing at nothing and having sex. Technically, summer starts tomorrow, as marked with the annual summer solstice. This, for a little refresher, is when the sun reaches its highest point in the sky and we get the most light of all the days in the year.

It’s also a time of rejuvenation, celebration, and basking in the tremendous power we each have inside ourselves. There’s a reason the sun is astrologically associated with the ego—today’s the day to run with that, and in its highest version. It’s a day to celebrate your outward thrust of creativity and consciousness, your will, and the part of you that knows it is learning and generating and manifesting. And to recognize that capacity in everyone.

The sun is the most obvious of celestial bodies, undeniable in its magnificent power, as it is also the primary source of energy for all of life. It’s agreed across the board that exposure to the sun is vital to well-being, as it provides essential vitamin D, enriches the blood, cures some skin disorders, stimulates the immune system, and increases mental health and happiness. There are people out there—notably guru Hira Ratan Manek—who subsist mainly or entirely on sunlight and water, claiming that food is secondary to the nourishment that the sun provides. Sun gobblers say that the brain is powerful enough to know what to do with the abundance the sun provides, and all it takes is mind training to feed on it. I cannot imagine ordering an appetizer of indirect rays, followed with an entree of a 2 PM scorcher, though whatever the trick is (find out here), Hira Ratan Manek has purportedly been doing it since 1995.

There are other ways to gorge on the sun, and celebrate this day in a simple manner: watch it rise, plant something, make some sun tea, join with friends to make art, go out dancing, have amazingly blissful sex. Make lists or image collages of things you want to renew, manifest, enhance, or purge, and/or do a spiral ritual by yourself or with some self-secure friends who aren't gonna start cracking up or peace out midway through. At least for some of this day, still for as long as you can and breathe in your own power, meditating on your immense capacity for love and joy and creatorship. You are source energy too! Feel that coursing throughout your body, and send it down into the earth and up and outward. It might not be too late to join these yogis in the desert. Or, you know, you can go out into the woods and jump over bonfires, light candles, invoke the four directions, and recite plays honoring the masculine force of life. It's all cool with the sun.

Do you celebrate the solstice in any way, or is this just crazy to you?